Remember
by worldssockrocker
Summary: Draco watches over Harry, even after he is gone.


A/n- Idea stems from the song Remember by Josh Groban off the Troy soundtrack. Also there's a line from Into the West by Annie Lennox of the Lord of the Rings Return of the King soundtrack.

This was written because I needed something a little depressing and also because I need a little bit of hope in this seemingly hopeless world.

**Remember**

I watch from above as darkness overtakes your part of the world, as the sun slowly vanishes down behind the trees and mountains. Night has settled itself over the manor. Like a blanket, darkness has enveloped the world around you, taking with it the hope that things will get better and leaving behind a cold unsettling despair.

The darkness doesn't touch me where I am.

You take your seat by the 3rd floor parlour window, just as you have every night for the past six months. Sadness fills your eyes and your shoulders slump forward in defeat. In seconds you transform from the powerful cocksure wizard the world knows, to the tired lonely man with nothing left to live for.

I have watched this transition on many nights, and every night it brings from me a heart-wrenching sob. You shouldn't have to suffer; it's not your fault, none of it is your fault.

From behind you a hand grasps your shoulder, for a moment my mind whirls with a jealousy, have you all ready found someone new? Someone to look after, love, and care for you, as I should have been able to do? I tell myself I'm being stupid, and realise that the hand belongs to your best friend, Ron Weasley.

He leans down and whispers in your ear, and even though I can't hear him I know what he telling you. He is saying, 'Harry please, eat something. Please Harry. You haven't eaten for days.' But you shake your head and continue to stare out the window, with renewed intensity.

He is right you know, you are nothing but skin and bones, skinnier than you were when I first met you, 10 years ago.

"Why do you stare out the window so much, Harry?" Hermione asks timidly, coming in from the hallway. I will you silently to answer, for this is a question that I have been wondering myself.

"Sometimes, I can see him," you say in a voice so hushed that it's a miracle Hermione hears you. "And it's almost like he never left."

A look of alarm crosses over your friends' faces. Whatever they had been expecting it had not been this. Instantly they begin to fear for your sanity. They begin to speak of bringing a doctor to help you. You shake your head and dismiss them silently, with a hand movement that was usually reserved for servants. Then you continue to stare.

I follow your gaze to the spot on the lawn to which you dedicate your attention every night. After a while of staring I begin to see things too.

There is snow falling and I am walking from my carriage. I have just arrived home from work. Father moved to be nearer to Voldemort and left me the entire estate. You have just gotten there for the Christmas holiday. It is the first time we have seen each other in over a month. You dart from the front door the moment you hear me get out of the carriage. Halfway to the house you bowl me over, kissing my senseless and laughing.

I smile at the vision, and wonder if you see it too.

You sit and stare for a long while more. Hours go by and you have yet to move. Both Hermione and Ron have been in to check on you countless times, although you never acknowledged them. Both left with the same resigned looks on their faces, the knowledge that you were slipping further and further away each passing day.

You shake your head, as though to clear away unwanted thoughts. You take one last long look out the window before getting up with a heavy sigh. Slowly you walk to the door. Before you even open it you hear voices and stop.

"He needs help, Ron!" One of them, Hermione, says in an exasperated tone.

"He'll be fine, just give him-"

"Time? We have given him time. 6 months of time. He's had enough-"

"He'll get over it when he's ready, Hermione."

"He's getting worse, even you have to see that. If he's not himself in a week…" Slowly you back away from the door. Your facial expression hasn't changed, but something about you has. Just moments before you had carried yourself tall, just as you had always done, even your slow walk had a little bit of strut in it. Now, as you walk to a different door, one that won't make you face your best friends, you slouch in a defeated way. Your strut has become a shuffle.

You go up to our room and lie on the bed, not even bothering to change out of your work clothing into something a bit more suitable for sleeping. Staring at the ceiling you begin to mutter angrily to yourself, every once in a while kicking an invisible being seen to none but you. After some time you fall asleep.

I remember once you slept so beautifully, I could have sat there and watched you sleep forever. A peaceful smile would take over your face and all your features would relax. You looked like an angel.

Now you are plagued by horrible dreams that leave your face contorted with pain and fury. Often you sob, scream, beg, thrash and moan in your sleep. Never, since the day I left, have you gone a night in silence. Eventually you do fall into silence, but normally it takes several hours.

Tonight is particularly horrible. Although you fell to sleep quickly you thrash about so violently that I fear for your safety. Just two hours before dawn your feverish murmuring and occasional crying subside. A blank look comes to your face and I know that you have stopped dreaming all together.

Right now, more than any time thus far I long to take you in my arms. I wish to comfort you and tell you it's not so bad being gone. I yearn to try and make you see how important it is that you keep up your strength.

You always were hopefully foolish, in the way that you let your emotions hang out in the open all the time. Even in situations where it was imperative that you keep those emotions locked within yourself.

As the last stars begin to fade from the velvety nighttime sky you stir. Like always brief spasms of pain and horror cross your face. You look torn between staying in the world where you have no thoughts, and no conscious idea of pain, and the real world that you are forced to be part of everyday.

**Look out your window**, I will. To my utter delight you grab your wand from your pocket and silently open the heavy drapes that cover the window nearest to the massive four-poster canopy bed. You look out over the land I once owned, or as much as you can see from the bedroom's window. Off to the east the fingers of dawn begin to spread across the sky, but in the west there is still blackness, and one lone star.

The transition from night to day has long since been my favourite time. When I was younger it was a time when neither mother nor father was up, and although most of the time I was ignored by them there was always the off chance that one of them would come and yell at or curse me for something that they had felt so sure I had done.

When I was younger my maid told me a story. It was a long and boring story that always put me back to sleep, when I awoke in the early hours of the morning. I never heard all of it, and can't remember most of it. All I know is how it started.

'Look, see that star, out there?' She would start, pointing out my window to the lone star. My three-year-old neck would strain anxiously to try and see where she was pointing while the rest of my body stayed in my warm bed. 'That is a special star, that is. Do you know why it's a special star?' At this point I would shake my head, although I had heard the story almost every morning since I was a year and a half. 'That star, to us, represents the one person we want most to be with us. But only if, for whatever reason, that person cannot be with us.' She would say in an excited whisper, as if disclosing a wonderful secret to me.

'What if there is no one we want to be with us? Or if they are all ready with us?' I asked.

'Then we see nothing. The last stars burn out at the same time, don't they?' There she would pause a moment, both of us staring at the star, a look of sadness flitted across her face before she picked up the story again. Much after this point I didn't listen. Rather I lay in bed, thinking of the person I wanted there more than anything, until I grew too tired to stay awake.

I see a small smile grace your face as you stare placidly at the star. I had always wondered if you remembered me telling you The Story of the Star, and it seems at last I know the answer. You raise your hand and wave your fingers at it. 'Hello Draco,' you whisper. 'I miss you. I miss you so much. It hurts. It… it hurts so badly. Sometimes… most of the times, it feels like I'm suffocating.' Your resolved face breaks and you begin to cry. 'Why did you leave me?' You yell. 'Why?'_  
_

I stare down sadly as your yelling turns to sobbing. Your words become impossible to understand completely, but you seem to vary from cursing me and saying you wished I had never existed to praising me and begging me to come back to you.

It doesn't take long for Hermione and Ron to come running in. It is almost like a sixth sense they have, one that alerts them to when you are particularly upset, although it is possibly the oddly shaped box they put underneath your bed. They have matching ones in their rooms.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Ron's face is panic-stricken again. Hermione begins smoothing your hair, a desperate attempt at a comfort she knows she cannot provide.

"We used to go onto the roof, at Hogwarts. We'd sit there and stare at the stars all night. Sometimes we slept under them. He would always hold me, and give me his blanket when I got too cold.

"He would show me constellations and tell me the stories behind them; I could never find them though. But he was so patient, explaining anything I didn't understand and pointing out the patterns until I thought I could find them." You speak in such a monotonous voice now. "He promised to stay with me forever."

You don't leave your bed that day, or the next day. You sit and stare out the window, at the door, at the ceiling. A doctor comes, Hermione summoned him. But you don't notice. Friends from work come, to make sure you're okay, but you don't answer them when they ask you questions. You don't eat, you don't sleep; you don't do anything but stare.

Finally you get up. You still don't eat anything but you accept the glass of water waiting for you by your bed and drink it all in one gulp. It refills itself and again you drink. Then you make your way, plodding slowly, through our room, down the hallway and the stairs and out the front door.

You ignore your friends as you make your way passed them. They don't even say anything, just look at you with tear-filled eyes. Hermione moves, as if to follow you but Ron puts his hand on her shoulder and shakes his head. They cannot follow you anymore, not where you are.

You shiver when the cold air hits you, the wind howling all around. Your cloak is hanging, forgotten, in your bedroom. It is cold for October and I shake my head. You never wore your cloak unless someone forced it onto you.

Your shivering increases as you get further from the house. "Put a cloak on, you stupid git!" I can't help but yell down at you. You freeze mid-step and look around half hopeful, half fearful.

"Draco?" You whisper, lips blue and teeth chattering. You're so cold and you're so weak. You shouldn't be outside. Your body begins to sway and I watch as you collapse on the half frozen ground.

I close my eyes and wish to every deity I have ever heard of that I could be down there with you, if only for five minutes. I pray as hard as I can, in as many tongues as I can, to as many gods as I can. And then I'm there; standing in front of you.

I throw myself down and cradle your head in my lap: savouring the feeling of you in my arms again. I know you're going to wake up soon and I know that as soon as you wake up I'm going to have to leave. I breathe in your scent, run my hands through your hair, kiss your scar, your nose, and your lips.

I wish I had my wand with me, but instead settle for chanting ancient spells over your body. Spells for strength, for healing, for love. Spells to bring you from your despair and back into the world. I chant until my mouth is dry and the words run together and then I just sit there, holding your hand; willing you to wake up, while at the same time dreading it.

I've all ready left you once; I don't want to do it again. But this time it feels less permanent. I know you'll be safe and that you'll get well again. I know you'll live for many years; not a complete life, but a content one. I know you'll find love again, but you'll never love as you loved me. I know I can watch over you and that one day you and I will be joined again, this time in the eternal bond of the heavens.

The threads of dread leave, releasing their hold on you and I feel your conscious floating closer to the surface. Your eyelids flutter and you squint up at me, positive that I'm another of your hallucination.

"Draco?"

I want to tell you that I will only leave you when you let me leave you. I want you to know that I will stay with you until you push all thoughts of me from your mind and you never think of me again. Instead I say 'I love you."

I can feel myself begin to fade, as you come further into your consciousness. In my last moment I press a gentle kiss to your lips; that tell you everything that I want to say. I know that moment will be our last for years and I want to draw it out for as long as possible, but I don't.

You and I will meet again, and until then I'll be with you, as long as you remember me.


End file.
